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Young people donate less to charity than any other segment of the population. Fundraisers have always assumed that is an immutable fact.

It used to frustrate the daylights out of Anisa Mirza. In the five years she spent working for charities, non-profits and voluntary organizations, she was told repeatedly: “They’re a me, me, me generation. They won’t give back.”

The 26-year-old tried mightily to change her supervisors’ minds. “Maybe things would be different if we engaged with them using their language and their media,” she insisted. Their response was dismissive.

So she turned her sights elsewhere, determined to tap into her generation’s goodness. She talked about it with other illennials at parties, coffee shops, community events and social enterprise startups. That’s how she met computer scientists Allan and Kevin Shin. The 34-year-old twins were making a good living designing apps and websites for commercial clients, but they were restless. “We wanted to do something different and more rewarding; something we could be proud of,” Allan explained.

Mirza’s mission fit the bill. The trio decided to launch their own start-up. Giveffect is North America’s first crowdfunding platform built exclusively to meet the needs of charities.

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The term crowdfunding didn’t exist when they hatched their plan. But by their launch last April, the concept had gone viral. Filmmakers, scientists, entrepreneurs, even the editor of gossip website Gawker, who wanted $200,000 to buy a video of Toronto Mayor Rob Ford allegedly smoking crack cocaine, had discovered crowdfunding. “The timing just happened to work out,” Allan Shin said self-deprecatingly.

He and his brother built the platform. Mirza who has an extensive network of contacts and a winning personality, populated it. She started by cold-calling the CEOs of two small charities. The first, based in Mississauga, was Youth Troopers for Global Awareness, which sought to end the child sex trade. The second, based in Calgary, was Canadians for Global Care, which wanted to build a hospital in Kashmir. Both were struggling to find donors.

“I have a way to help you raise funds for your project,” Mirza told them, launching into her sales pitch and urging them to give it a try. Within two weeks Canadians for Global Care had 70 new donors and $1,500 in the bank.

Word spread quickly. Giveffect now has 30 registered charities on its platform and 80 more signed up. Here is how it works: Giveffect charges 6.2 cents per dollar raised (plus a 30-cent transaction fee charged by PayPal). In return, it provides clients with a detailed profile of their donors by gender, age and geography; an up-to-the moment tally of how much they’ve raised and how many page hits they’ve had; technical support and widespread exposure on social media. “We’re cheaper than other fundraising professionals and data collectors,” Shin pointed out.

Their highest profile client so far is War Child Canada, a multi-million-dollar charity that supports children in war-ravaged communities founded by Dr. Samantha Nutt and her husband, Dr. Erik Hoskins (now Ontario’s minister of economic development, trade and employment). Mirza met Hoskins at a Sikh event and delivered her pitch. He listened with polite interest.

She phoned him the next day asking for a referral to War Child’s chief fundraiser, Brock Warner. Hoskins complied and an interview was set up. “I was actually intimidated,” Mirza confessed. “He really knows his stuff.”

Warner took a couple of days to weigh her proposal and signed up. Leaving nothing to chance, Mirza asked all her Facebook friends to donate to the campaign and make her birthday wish come true. Money poured in. Warner was so impressed he wrote a testimonial. “Our first crowdfunding campaign on Giveffect was a great success and is an example of how powerful a fundraising platform it can be in the hands of passionate young people.”

Within a year the partners expect to have a U.S. operation, a global community of motivated young people and a bigger story to tell. “We want to revolutionize philanthropy,” Mirza said. “People laugh at our big dreams, but they thought we were crazy when we started up.”

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